No one has an obligation to be a sports fan. It's that simple. No secret handshakes, no over-the-top requirements to show your commitment to a cause. You show up to a game, put on a jersey, or merely check the paper the next day for the final score and you're in the club. The diehards might not accept you into their little self-indulgent treehouse, but who needs them? Who says their word is final? There's no rhyme or reason to it, no logic, and no requirements. I'm a Cubs fan, Bears fan, Bulls fan, and Blackhawks fan. I can remember Carlos Marmol knocking out Brewers hitters like it was yesterday: slider, fastball, fastball, fastball, slider, strike out. I can imitate Derrick Lee's swing to perfection: right-handed, open stance, bat between a 90 and 180 degree angle, and a major leg sweep to get the timing right. Derrick Lee hasn't worn a Cubs uniform in years. Craig Krenzel to Bernard Berrian for 49 yards and a TD? In my mind it happened yesterday, not eight years ago. $100 for a Toews jersey? Absolutely worth it. Without question.
That's the power of fandom. Plain and simple.
There isn't a test you pass to become a diehard for your cause, and there's no badge that you can betray. No one has questioned my credentials as a Cubs fan, nor have I questioned theirs. You claim to be a Cubs fan? Then you're a Cubs fan until you say otherwise. The satisfaction the each of us receives from victories may not be the same, nor the stinging pain of defeat, but we've invested in both of those things. When I first discovered baseball, I was a White Sox fan. Why? No reason. None whatsoever, aside from them being from Chicago. Then I went to a Cubs game and changed my mind. I was 12, and haven't changed my mind since. No one makes rational decisions when they're 12. You're in middle school, just started to hit puberty, and have barely begun to grasp the idea that competition is the perfect outlet for everything, even if you don't know why you're so damn competitive. Even losing to relatives at a board game sucks.
But fans, diehard, casual, in middle school, what have you, are just that: fans. With jobs and lives outside of the ticker on the bottom of the screen during SportsCenter. On top of the never-ending daily grind of working 40 or more hours a week, dealing with the barrage of school work, coming home to personal problems, or putting up with shit I can't even begin to fathom, people still tune into sports. I've spent so much time watching games that I've likely wasted years fully grasping zone defenses or what to throw in a 2-2 count when the only pitches in your repertoire are breaking balls and fastballs. I could have spent that time studying AP U.S. History or Microeconomics. And yet I planted myself in front of the television, day after day, game after game, for reasons I can't articulate.
For some reason geography is the basis of almost all sports fandom, and no one questions that. I am a Cubs fan who originally rooted for the White Sox because they were from Chicago. I changed allegiances to the Cubs because they too were from Chicago. Just physically (in terms of ballparks) closer. (Also maybe because their uniforms had actual colors. But I honestly don't remember why I fell in love with baseball, or with the White Sox, or with the Cubs. I grew attached to the Red Sox because I had family in Boston. Likewise, I have family who don't like in the Midwest yet call the Cubs their #2 because of us in the Midwest who do call the Cubs our team.
I've suffered through painful defeats, depressing eras that have lasted years, championships, and everything in between, but I've never abandoned any team that becomes a part of my life's blood. I've been so angry at these teams that I've thrown things, broken things, and thrown gear away. Screams, tears, jubilation, sobs, exhilaration, you name it and I've done it in the name of fandom. Hell, a god damn video game commercial that simulated Cubs fans celebrating a World Series victory made me tear up. Nothing makes me tear up. That's not hyperbole. I just don't break into tears. And yet slipping into a dream where I'm in Wrigleyville, surrounded by lifelong Cubs fans, as that team wins it all has me fucking bawling my eyes out. IT WAS A GOD DAMN VIDEO GAME COMMERCIAL.
And so we boo them sometimes. We put them on these immeasurable pedestals that project this superhuman image of athleticism that's so out of our league it becomes a form of escapism so strong we don't even recognize it as escapism. It's beyond escapism, above the silliness of getting lost in a book, TV show, or band. It's so engrained in society that diehards are completely accepted, unlike Trekkies and Tolkien lovers. Pouring your heart and soul out into a team is expected. And winning a championship is considered so far beyond anything, it eclipses every other single emotion combined. More than love, more than hate, more than anything. Absolutely anything. When our team loses, that escapism is broken and ruined, an ugly punch to the gut that throws so many negative emotions in our faces we can't think straight, because we give them so much weight relative to everything else in our lives. And so we boo them sometimes.
It's a double-edged sword, fans and athletes. Fans owe players nothing. Players owe fans nothing. I choose to be a fan of a particular team because of geography and the stupid idea that the emotional roller coaster is worth the ride. Players play because they get paid to. Ideally they play to win a championship, because that's how sports is framed: play like a champion and win it all. But simply playing the game is their job. Don't confuse the job with this false idolatry. Winning it all is what the archetypal sports myth is all about, but we don't live in a world of myths and ideals. We live in a world with men and women, both on and off the field.
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